TRADITIONS

No one has ever called me traditional. And at 1:00 a.m. on Christmas morning I decided the heck with the stockings and hung the presents on the mantel. Good enough. I even included the shoes and accessories.

I told myself that this year would be different. I would start shopping in August. Silly fool. I was scrambling away ordering items online at midnight because I ran out of daylight to get to all of the stores. I wanted to be the seasoned hostess, smiling and ready when my guests came, but I was carting home my ham 2 hours before they were scheduled to arrive. I wanted to bake, although I confess I don't like to. And bake I did. I also ate a lot of it and had to bake again. I wanted to spend a lot of time wrapping pretty packages with bows and ribbon. I had to face it, I'm not really good at wrapping at all and although I have lived almost half of my life, I can't tie a decent bow. And in an effort to have a color scheme going in a fashionable sense with my gifts, I chose shiny red and gold glittery wrapping paper. Glitter everywhere, my hair, my face and any place I touched. I gave up and went to the drugstore for the plain old paper stuff. No ribbons or bows. And I think gift bags are the greatest invention since microwave popcorn.

I've have spent the past 23 years having children pulling me out of bed to unwrap gifts on Christmas morning. This year my adult son (who does not live at home) said he would be over at 10:00 a.m. for the big event. I then had 2 adult children whining at 8:00 a.m. that tradition had been broken by this male lout, but they quickly forgot it and went back to bed. Having been up over an hour, sticking my hand in various cavities of a turkey, I now sat with my 3rd cup of coffee, drumming my fingers on the breakfast table and waited for the children. Tables turned.

I made out like a bandit in the gift receiving area. Somehow I feel it might be a celestial reward for all the things I attempt to do at Christmas to make it more magical, and then fail at. The Husband gave me a gorgeous pair of Coach boots with a matching scarf and gloves (the boots are too small but he did manage to hang on to the receipt for an exchange). Emily gave me a pair of flannel pajama's (which have been totally ditched since the M word took over my life) and warm snugly socks from Brookstone. She obviously thinks I am always cold... Abigail gave me a bottle of Chanel No. 5, and I'd like to have a little discussion with the saleslady who talked her into it. I apologize to any of you that like it...it smells like baby powder gone bad. And one of my sons gave me a new laptop (this is the same son who wouldn't give me $5.00 in the airport one time for a magazine). He might have taken pity on the fact that the laptop I share with The Husband gets stolen right out from under my nose because "I have it all day". And finally, there was one gift I didn't get, and that was having Kevin home for Christmas. He was shipped back down to Florida for the golf season, so it was our first year not together as a family. Worse for him, being alone while us together. But we talked to him today, and while we are in the middle of a blizzard, he was out on the course, hitting a few balls. I am sure that is a tradition he will grow to love.

I hope you had a wonderful Christmas!